Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.
In my 30 plus years of being a meteorologist I can't ever recall a year like this one as far as extreme weather events go.
What we choose to eat is one of the biggest factors in our personal impact on the environment.
I care not what
others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of
what I do! That is character!
Climate change is arguably the most persistent threat to global stability in the coming century.
I believe that
we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the
consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.
We can learn
from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded
to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can
learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be
different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that
human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made,
cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other
choices and thus they determine future events.
The ultimate
measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and
convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
We need to solve the climate crisis, it's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act, that's a renewable resource, let's renew it.
We desperately
need to recognize that we are the guests not the masters of nature and
adopt a new paradigm for development, based on the costs and benefits
to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than
the limits of technology and consumerism.
Climate change
is one of the most serious public health threats facing our nation.
Don't get me
wrong: I love nuclear energy! It's just that I prefer fusion to
fission. And it just so happens that there's an enormous fusion reactor
safely banked a few million miles from us. It delivers more than we
could ever use in just about 8 minutes. And it's wireless!
We don't have to
save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we
have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will
be capable of sustaining us in it.
People tend to focus on the here and now. The problem is that, once global warming is something that most people can feel in the course of their daily lives, it will be too late to prevent much larger, potentially catastrophic changes.
The facts are there that we have created, man has, a self-inflicted wound through global warming.
The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.
All across the world, in every kind of environment and region known to man, increasingly dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms are abruptly putting an end to the long-running debate over whether or not climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster.
The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much we're contributing to the warming of the earth's atmosphere and how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe.
The good news is, we have everything we need now to respond to the challenge of global warming. We have all the technologies we need, more are being developed.... But we should not wait, we cannot wait, we must not wait.
We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.
The cheapest energy is the energy you don't use in the first place.
Believe you can and you're halfway there.
I urge individuals around the world to stand up, and ask local leaders, if they haven't already,
to pledge to purchase cleaner cars, build green facilities, and buy green power like wind or solar energy.
Our actions may determine if we become a casualty in the war for a habitable planet for generations to come.
We need a new industrial revolution.
Climate change threatens all our goals for development and social progress.
On the other hand, it also presents us with a gilt-edged opportunity.
We need the world to put a price on carbon.
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,
paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most
350 ppm.
Climate security is a global public good.
We are running out of road on decision making - unless we dramatically change the use of fossil fuels then
we will be committing future generations to the most severe impacts of climate change.
A stable world carbon price is essential.
Some of these challenges may be foreseable, many of them may not.
Some of the risks associated with a rapidly changing climate may be quantifiable, many of them may not.
Doing nothing is not an option.
It's a moral question.
We need to identify crucial policies that need to be implemented now,
such as setting new standards for energy use by appliances.
